“A lot of things have happened to me in my career with England and Chelsea and, whenever it’s backs to the wall and for whatever reason that might be, it brings a togetherness and can be used as a positive. You certainly can’t let it be used as a negative. It’s something that is out of the players’ control, anyway, so all we can do now is make it a positive.”

“If your players cannot move to the best clubs, I believe they will not improve. If you have a child who is a good musician, what is your first reaction? It is to put it into a good music school, not in an average one. So why should that not happen in football? If a player goes to Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, it is all [above board] and he gets a good education.”

“The real challenge is to understand why one of England’s top football clubs, which like 40 others has spent millions of pounds developing an academy, and can sign up huge numbers of boys from a very young age, has failed to bring a local player through since 28-year-old John Terry, and scours other countries’ clubs for teenage talent.”

“We must all accept that for a country of some 60 million people, we are not producing the depth of players at the top level with the necessary technical skills now required by the major clubs and international teams.”